Buddha statues get bigger on mainland China in bid to lure tourists

Local officials on the mainland are drawing inspiration from Buddha, but perhaps not in a way he might have intended.

Tourism bureaus and developers are racing to build ever-higher statues of Buddha, in an attempt to copy the success of the Lingshan Grand Buddha in Wuxi, Jiangsu province.

The 88-metre-high attraction drew about 3.8 million visitors last year, generating more than 1.2 billion yuan (HK$1.5 billion). Not a bad return on 725 tonnes of bronze sheet.

Hong Kong's Tian Tan Buddha, at a modest 34 metres, would barely rise to the knees of the current behemoths such as the 208-metre-high Spring Temple Buddha in Lushan county in Henan province.

At least five others taller than Tian Tan are spread across the mainland and the list is set to grow, including a planned 88-metre-high statue of the bodhisattva Guanyin in Suzhou , Jiangsu province, a 99-metre depiction of the bodhisattva Ksitigarbha in Anhui province, and a 48-metre statue of Amitabha Buddha at Lu Mountain in Jiangxi province.

According to the New Weekly, the Aerosun Corporation, which built the Tian Tan Buddha on Lantau, is developing more than 10 such projects across the country this year.